Great many vibration type driving apparatuses that excite vibrations in a vibrator to move a movable body that is in pressure-contact therewith have been proposed. They are positioned as important functional components particularly in optical devices which are required to operate accurately. An example thereof is a two-dimensional driving apparatus in which a plurality of linear-motion-type (a type capable of linearly moving a movable body) vibration type driving apparatuses are disposed, and the driving operations thereof are combined to allow two-dimensional movement of the movable body. Another example is an image-blur correction apparatus using this two-dimensional driving apparatus (see PTL 1).
However, the method of combining driving operations of a plurality of vibration type driving apparatuses has the following important problems to be solved.
For example, the moving direction of the movable body and the driving direction of some of the plurality of vibration type driving apparatuses sometimes intersect at right angles or at angles close to right angles depending on the moving direction of the movable body. In this case, not only the vibration type driving apparatus whose driving direction intersects the moving direction at right angles or angles close to right angles cannot contribute to driving but also a frictional force due to the contact between the movable body and the vibration type driving apparatus exerts a load on the movement of the movable body, causing an energy loss, which results in an output loss. This may cause a decrease in characteristics when used as, for example, a two-dimensional driving apparatus, an image-blur correction apparatus, an interchangeable lens, an image pickup apparatus, or an automatic stage.
To solve these problems, PTL 1 discloses a configuration having a moving mechanism (deflecting mechanism) that allows a vibrator to move in a direction (deflecting direction) intersecting the driving direction. This prevents the vibrator and the movable body from moving relative to each other in the deflecting direction. By forming the deflecting mechanism out of a guide mechanism having a remarkably small sliding loss or an elastic spring having low rigidity, a load that acts on the movable body can be made extremely small. This remarkably reduces the output loss.